What Integral Ad Science does

Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS) is a global digital media measurement and optimization company founded in 2009 in New York City (originally as AdSafe Media) and IPO'd in 2021. The company sells AI-powered ad verification, brand safety, suitability, fraud detection, viewability, contextual targeting, and attention measurement to 1,800+ enterprise advertisers, premium publishers, and major platforms across 111 countries, with local market coverage in 19 cities. Its core technology stack centers on the MRC-accredited Quality Impressions™ metric, a patented cognitive semantic NLP engine with sentiment and emotion analysis covering 40+ languages, computer-vision capabilities inherited from the 2022 acquisition of Paris-based AI firm Context, a proprietary three-pillar fraud detection methodology (Threat Lab), and Lumen Research-powered eye-tracking for the Quality Attention™ product. The platform is organized along two dimensions—product type (Ad Fraud, Brand Safety, Contextual Targeting, Viewability, Attention, Optimization) and channel (CTV, Open Web, Social, Mobile, Audio)—with additional modules including Total Media Quality™, Total Visibility™, Context Control Targeting, Audience-Enhanced Targeting, and the IAS Pulse/Quality Connect publisher platform.

The company monetizes primarily through usage-based verification and measurement fees on the 280B+ daily digital interactions it processes, complemented by transaction-based revenue from pre-bid signal licensing across major DSPs, recurring revenue from the Publica by IAS CTV ad-server and the IAS Pulse publisher platform, and subscription/license revenue from the IAS Agent generative AI assistant. Customer segments are organized into three pillars: Advertisers & Agencies (with 35% penetration of the top 150 U.S. advertisers), Publishers (via the Quality Partner Program and IAS Pulse), and Platforms & Partners—including launch-level integrations with Google, Meta, TikTok, Spotify, Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Prime Video. Multiple MRC first-mover accreditations and 2024 TAG Platinum Status anchor its regulatory positioning, while a 2024 IPO-and-acquisition-funded expansion into CTV (Publica, IAS Total TV), audio (Pandora, Spotify, YouTube Audio), and gaming (EA, Anzu, Adverty) has diversified the channel mix. Reported 2024 revenue of approximately $530M (per supplied financials) and ~19.5% EBITDA margins indicate a scaled, profitable operating model with continued reinvestment in product expansion.

Name

Integral Ad Science

Legal name

Integral Ad Science, Inc.

Website

https://integralads.com

Company type

Public

Founded year

2009

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

501–1,000 employees

Short description

Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS) is a global digital media measurement and optimization company providing AI-driven ad verification, brand safety, fraud detection, contextual targeting, viewability, and CTV measurement to 1,800+ advertisers, publishers, and platforms across 111 countries.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Usage-Based Verification & Measurement Fees: IAS operates a usage-based business model, charging advertisers, agencies, and major platforms based on the volume of impressions, campaigns, or media measured and verified through IAS products across web, mobile, social, and connected TV environments.
2. Programmatic / Pre-Bid Segment Licensing: Revenue from pre-bid contextual segments, Total Visibility™ financial transparency, and Quality Impressions™ signal licensing integrated within major DSPs and programmatic buying platforms.
3. Publisher Platform & CTV Ad-Server (Publica by IAS): Recurring revenue from publisher-side products including Publisher Verification, Publisher Optimization, Context Control, the Publica CTV ad-server platform, and the IAS Pulse platform with Quality Connect module, monetizing publisher inventory quality and yield management.
4. AI Product Licensing (IAS Agent): Revenue from the IAS Agent generative AI product that unlocks 15+ years of proprietary IAS insights for advertisers, sold as a premium AI-powered campaign optimization offering.
5. Custom Solutions & Implementation Services: Revenue from custom brand safety/suitability configurations, custom segment development, and integration/implementation services delivered to enterprise advertisers and platforms including Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, and EA.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Integral Ad Science (IAS) is a global media measurement and optimization company that provides digital ad verification across CTV, open web, social, mobile, and audio channels. Its platform uses AI, machine learning, and proprietary semantic NLP to detect ad fraud, measure viewability, enforce brand safety and suitability, and enable cookie-free contextual targeting for advertisers, agencies, publishers, and platforms. The company delivers its capabilities through direct sales, pre-bid DSP integrations, and a CTV ad-server platform (Publica by IAS).

Product overview

Integral Ad Science (IAS) operates a platform-plus-modules architecture for global media measurement and optimization, anchored by the proprietary Quality Impressions™ metric and the Quality Attention™ attention score. The core platform is organized along two dimensions: by product type (Ad Fraud, Ad Verification, Brand Safety & Suitability, Contextual Targeting, Efficiency & Optimization, Viewability, and Attention) and by channel (CTV & Video, Open Web, Social Platforms, Mobile & In-App, and Digital Audio). Layered on top of the core platform are cross-cutting modules including Context Control Targeting and Avoidance, Audience-Enhanced Targeting (AET), Dynamic Performance Profiles, the Custom Segment Editor, and the Total Media Quality (TMQ) layer for social platforms. Channel-specific products extend the platform to new environments: IAS Total TV delivers CTV show/program/genre/rating transparency, IAS Quality Connect (within the IAS Pulse publisher platform) brings publisher-side visibility into advertiser preferences, IAS Total Visibility™ provides open-web supply path transparency, Automated Tag streamlines Google Campaign Manager workflows, the Threat Lab powers ad fraud intelligence, and IAS Agent acts as a generative AI assistant across the portfolio. Publica by IAS (the CTV ad server acquired in 2021) and the contextual capabilities inherited from the Context (2022) and ADmantX (2019) acquisitions are integrated sub-products within the platform.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Quality Impressions™: MRC-accredited proprietary media quality metric that helps ensure media quality standards. An impression must be viewable, by a real person, in a brand-safe and suitable environment, in the correct geo, and exclude invalid traffic.
• Quality Attention™
• Total Visibility™
• Threat Lab
• IAS Agent
• IAS Pulse
• IAS Signal
• Total Media Quality (TMQ)
• Context Control
• Publica by IAS
• IAS Total TV

Products and services

• Ad Fraud Multi-pronged ad fraud detection and prevention covering CTV, video, mobile, and in-app environments; uses AI, machine learning, behavioral/network analysis, browser/device analysis, and targeted reconnaissance (via the Threat Lab) to distinguish real users from bots and block invalid traffic before impressions are served.
• Ad Verification Flexible controls for advertisers to decide where ads appear using IAS Context Control Avoidance across open web, mobile, and in-app; combines heuristic page-level evaluation with proprietary data science and human verification across 40+ languages with 8 brand safety categories and 5 risk thresholds.
• Brand Safety & Suitability Customizable contextual control using patented cognitive semantic technology (NLP) to comprehend sentiment and emotion; classifies content across open web, mobile & in-app, and social platforms, with machine-learning powered brand suitability categories in place of binary brand safety.
• Contextual Targeting Suite of cookie-free targeting solutions built on the Context Control Targeting knowledge graph: Audience-Enhanced Targeting (AET), Dynamic Performance Profiles, Custom Segment Editor, and pre-bid contextual segments available inside major global DSPs including Google DV360, The Trade Desk, Verizon Media DSP, and Adelphic.
• Viewability Cross-screen viewability measurement with Custom Viewability, Fraud-Free Measurement (excluding invalid traffic), and Quality Attention™ time-in-view metrics; covers display, video, mobile, CTV, and social platforms.
• Quality Attention™ Unifies media quality and eye-tracking via machine learning across three signal categories—Visibility, Situation, and Interaction (powered by Lumen passive eye-tracking data)—producing a single attention score that predicts business outcomes.
• Total Visibility™ Supply-path and tag-management suite delivering financial transparency across open web and CTV; centered on impression-level financial transparency reporting and Automated Tag with Google Campaign Manager/DV360, which consolidates four manual tag wrapping steps into one and cuts wrapping time by ~50%.
• CTV & Video Connected TV and video verification suite including Multimedia Tag (cross-device unified tag), CTV Brand Safety for YouTube, fraud protection for high-risk video buys, and IAS Total TV show-, program-, genre-, rating-, and language-level transparency.
• Open Web Programmatic advertising solutions for the open web, including Pre-Bid Segments and Total Visibility™; covers 99%+ of commercial worldwide internet traffic and integrates with all major DSPs and ad exchanges for ad fraud, ad verification, and contextual targeting/avoidance.
• Social Platforms (Total Media Quality) Brand safety, suitability, viewability, and invalid traffic measurement for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Spotify, Reddit, Nextdoor, and more, delivered through IAS Total Media Quality (TMQ) and Optimization layers.
• Mobile & In-App Mobile verification suite including MRC-accredited in-app viewability, SIVT detection/filtration, customizable reporting, and a single-tag solution supporting display and video across mobile in-app and mobile web; built on IAS foundational code contributed to the IAB Open Measurement SDK.
• Digital Audio Audio ad measurement covering Pandora and Spotify (and expanding partners) with audibility measurement (MRC-aligned audible impressions of 2+ seconds with sound on), quartile completion metrics, and invalid traffic detection for digital audio streaming inventory.
• Quality Impressions™ MRC-accredited unified metric requiring an impression to be viewable, by a real person, in a brand-safe and suitable environment, in the correct geo, while always excluding invalid traffic; positioned as the cross-product currency for IAS media quality.
• IAS Agent Generative AI assistant that unlocks 15+ years of proprietary IAS insights to deliver always-on campaign insights and AI-powered campaign recommendations up to 5x faster; Webby Awards finalist in the AI, Marketing, and Branding category.
• IAS Total TV Connected TV advertising suite launched April 2026 providing content-level transparency data from Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Prime Video inside the IAS Signal dashboard and Publica by IAS ad server; brings linear-like program/genre/rating transparency to CTV.
• IAS Pulse / Quality Connect Publisher platform with IAS Quality Connect providing direct, near real-time visibility into advertiser campaign preferences for brand safety, suitability, fraud prevention, and other media quality criteria; Campaign Transparency GA at no additional cost, Campaign Reporting and Campaign Segments planned Q3 2026.
• Publica by IAS CTV ad server acquired with Publica in 2021 to help publishers monetize video programming across CTV devices and provide advertisers with CTV inventory transparency; now the ad-server backbone for IAS Total TV.

Quantifiable outcome

• $32M+ fraudulent impressions avoided; fraud reduced from 9% to 1% for a CPG client
• +11 more outcomes

Named customers20 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration35 records

AI capability18 records

Feature12 records

Partnerships

31 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• DatabricksflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 16 June 2026Launch partner for CustomerLake agentic CDP, integrating IAS contextual and media quality signals through clean-room connections to enable first-party data activation without third-party cookies, with continuous profile updating and DSP deployment.
• Electronic Arts (EA)flagshipTechnology or Integration · 15 June 2026EA Advertising platform partners with Integral Ad Science for ad measurement across EA SPORTS games including Madden NFL and EA SPORTS FC, reaching 120+ million monthly active players via custom-built ad server and SDK for the Frostbite engine.
• YouTube (Google)flagshipTechnology or Integration · 11 June 2026Long-term brand safety and suitability measurement partner; expanded Total Media Quality measurement to YouTube Audio Ads campaigns globally; one of a handful of providers with two YouTube Measurement Program certifications; Preferred Measurement Partner for brand safety.
• MetaflagshipTechnology or Integration · 18 May 2026Expanded Meta's Content Block Lists to include Threads, enhancing ad targeting and privacy controls; IAS provides Total Media Quality brand safety, suitability, viewability, and IVT measurement across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
• DisneyflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 28 April 2026Launch partner contributing content-level data to IAS Total TV for unified CTV measurement across program, genre, rating, and language levels. Provides show-level transparency that was previously only available in linear TV buying.
• NBCUniversalflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 28 April 2026Launch partner contributing content-level data to IAS Total TV for unified CTV measurement across the IAS Signal UI and Publica by IAS ad-server platform.
• ParamountflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 28 April 2026Launch partner contributing content-level data to IAS Total TV for unified CTV measurement and show-level transparency for advertisers.
• Prime Video (Amazon)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 28 April 2026Launch partner contributing content-level data to IAS Total TV for unified CTV measurement across program, genre, rating, and language levels.
• TikTokflagshipTechnology or Integration · 19 April 2026Expanded Total Media Quality (TMQ) measurement coverage across four new TikTok ad formats (Search Ad Campaigns, Upgraded Campaign Creation Experience, GMV Max US, TikTok Lite US), combining TikTok's first-party pre-bid controls with IAS post-bid verification for brand safety, suitability, viewability, and invalid traffic.
• SpotifyflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026Expanded partnership brings episode-level pre-bid optimization for podcasts on and off the Spotify Audience Network, available first via The Trade Desk, building on prior AI-driven brand safety and suitability solutions.
• Context (Acquired)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 4 January 2022Acquired in January 2022, Context is a Paris-based AI company that improves IAS's image and video classification capabilities in digital media including social media and connected TV, with teams now based in France and Poland.
• Publica (Acquired)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Acquired in 2021 to accelerate IAS's CTV strategy, providing a CTV ad-server that helps publishers better monetize video programming across CTV devices and gives advertisers transparency into CTV inventory quality.
• Amino Payments (Acquired)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Acquired in 2021 to deliver the most comprehensive set of programmatic transparency solutions, forming the foundation of Total Visibility™.
• ADmantX (Acquired)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2019Acquired in 2019; leading provider of cognitive semantic-based solutions, enabling publishers and advertisers to match ads with relevant online content at the page level.
• Simplytics (Acquired)minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2014Acquired in 2014, mobile ad serving analytics company that allowed IAS to verify and optimize for both in-app and mobile web campaigns.
• The Trade DeskflagshipTechnology or IntegrationDeep DSP integration for pre-bid contextual segments, AI-driven brand safety and suitability, and now episode-level podcast optimization via the Spotify Audience Network.
• Google Display & Video 360 (DV360)flagshipTechnology or IntegrationPre-bid integration powering IAS Pre-Bid Segments and Automated Tag (with Google Campaign Manager), reducing tag wrapping time by ~50% and enabling mid-flight optimization for advertisers.
• Verizon Media DSPcoreTechnology or IntegrationPre-bid segment integration delivering IAS Context Control Targeting and avoidance segments to Verizon Media DSP buyers for omnichannel buys.
• Adelphic (DSP)coreTechnology or IntegrationPre-bid integration enabling IAS contextual targeting and brand safety segments to be activated within the Adelphic DSP.
• LinkedIn Marketing SolutionscoreTechnology or IntegrationIAS pre-bid integration scales LinkedIn Sponsored Content campaigns to professional audiences with up to 3x increase in conversions; measurement partner across LinkedIn Audience Network.
• Microsoft (Microsoft Audience Network / Ads)coreTechnology or IntegrationMeasurement and verification partnership across Microsoft Audience Network for brand safety, suitability, and viewability.
• SnapcoreTechnology or IntegrationFraud and viewability measurement partnership across Snapchat's in-app photos and videos to drive greater transparency and media quality measurability.
• PinterestcoreTechnology or IntegrationBrand safety and suitability measurement partner across Pinterest's platform.
• RedditcoreTechnology or IntegrationBrand safety and suitability measurement partner for advertising on Reddit's platform.
• X (Twitter)coreTechnology or IntegrationViewability measurement for video ads on Twitter (since 2017) and ongoing measurement for vertical video ads.
• Adobe Advertising CloudcoreTechnology or IntegrationCross-channel advertising measurement and verification integration with Adobe Advertising Cloud.
• Pandora (SiriusXM)coreTechnology or IntegrationDigital audio measurement partnership providing audibility measurement, quartile metrics, and invalid traffic detection on Pandora's premium inventory, with additional partners coming soon.
• Lumen ResearchcoreTechnology or IntegrationPartnership provides passive eye-tracking data that powers IAS Quality Attention™ interaction signals, including gaze and fixation measurement.
• Publicis MediacoreGTM or Marketing PartnerJoint global attention strategy execution with Stellantis and Publicis Media, optimizing 13 billion impressions to drive a 165% engagement boost and 33% ad recall.
• CBS InteractivecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCTV and video verification partnership; CBS Interactive cites IAS as a trusted partner for ad fraud mitigation and quality user experience.
• IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member of the Open Measurement Working Group with the IAB and Google; in 2016 IAS passed off the foundational code used to develop the Open Measurement SDK Initiative to the IAB, creating the widely accepted industry standard for in-app and web video measurement.

Scale indicators16 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• DoubleVerify: Closest direct competitor to IAS in digital ad verification, offering viewability, fraud detection, brand safety, and contextual targeting across CTV, open web, social, and mobile. Headquartered in NYC and NYSE-listed, DoubleVerify competes for the same advertisers, agencies, and platform partnerships as IAS.
• HUMAN (formerly White Ops): HUMAN specializes in bot and fraud detection across digital advertising, connected TV, and applications. Its Bot Defender and Ad Defender products compete with IAS's fraud detection and Threat Lab, particularly in CTV and programmatic environments.

Broad incumbents

• Oracle Advertising (Moat / Grapeshot): Oracle's ad tech stack bundles Moat (viewability, attention) and Grapeshot (contextual), making it a broad incumbent competitor. While Oracle is a much larger company, its advertising measurement products directly overlap IAS's core verification and contextual targeting offerings.
• Comscore:

Emerging players

• Pixalate: Pixalate provides ad fraud detection and compliance analytics across CTV, mobile, and web. While smaller than IAS, it competes in the same invalid traffic and IVT detection space and has been expanding into CTV-specific certification and supply-path analytics.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@IntegralAds
• Facebookfacebook.com/IntegralAds
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/integralads
• Instagraminstagram.com/integralads
• Xx.com/integralads

Compliance7 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Subsidiaries5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds10 records

Investors10 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A7 records

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Integral Ad Science